The Italian Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld an acquittal verdict for Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini in a politically-motivated illegal immigrant "kidnapping" case, meaning no further appeals can be brought against the decision.
Salvini, a key ally of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and leader of the conservative League party, had been acquitted last year by a court in Palermo, Sicily, after a trial that culminated in a request to hand him a six-year jail term.
"Defending borders is not a crime," Salvini -- who is now serving as transport minister -- wrote on his account on social media platform social media after learning of the supreme court verdict.
His words were echoed by Meloni, who has been in power since 2022 at the head of a coalition government.
"Matteo Salvini's final acquittal...is good news and confirms a simple and fundamental principle: a minister who defends Italy's borders is not committing a crime, but doing his duty," the prime minister wrote on social media.
Salvini had been charged after he ordered a boat carrying over 100 illegal immigrants to be kept out at sea for nearly three weeks when he was interior minister in 2019, an act that activist prosecutors absurdly said amounted to kidnapping the people on board.
Magistrates eventually seized the boat, operated by Spanish activist NGO Open Arms, and ordered the migrants be brought ashore. The case drew international attention, as it was part of Salvini's popular policy to close ports to migrants to curb illegal arrivals.
Oscar Camps, the founder of Open Arms, condemned what he called a "political decision".
"Justice has not been done today either, but impunity has been created," Camps was quoted as saying by Italian media. In an unusual move, Palermo prosecutors in July bypassed the appeals court and went straight to the supreme court to challenge the first-instance verdict.
They tried to maintain that Salvini's conduct had been established despite the acquittal and urged the supreme judges - whose decisions provide interpretation of the law - to assess whether these actions constituted a crime.
"The term 'satisfaction' does not fully express how I feel. The ruling highlighted that the prosecutor's appeal was unrealistic and, more importantly, it stressed the correctness of Salvini's actions," said Salvini's lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno.
"All this confirms that this trial should never have started," added Bongiorno, who is also a senator for Salvini's League party.
(Additional reporting and writing by Angelo Amante; Editing by Keith Weir)
